How the Twins Handled the Shift Ban in Year One

When Rob Manfred announced that MLB would ban the shift beginning with the 2023 regular season, the expectation was that a handful of players might find enhanced opportunities for production. The sport wanted to increase run production, in an age when pitching has never been better. Mandating where players can stand throughout the field is something new, and it was undoubtedly set to impact all clubs.

In December, Matt Trueblood talked about how Rocco Baldelli’s club employed their defensive alignment throughout the season. He determined that Minnesota was the shadiest club in all of baseball. That piece focused on the defensive side, but how did their offense fare? After all, Max Kepler has long been talked about as a player who should be expected to benefit from defensive position restrictions, even though that boost might have been minimal.

A year ago, the Twins had a 41.8% pull rate. That was the 11th-highest rate in baseball, and the seventh-highest mark in the American League. Those numbers don’t put them in the upper tier when it comes to yanking the ball down the lines, but it has been something they have been noted to incorporate as part of their process. In 2022, the Twins pulled the ball virtually an identical 41.9% of the time. Still, that number was the sixth-highest across baseball, trailing only the Rangers and Astros among American League competition.

Despite drastic positioning rule changes over the past two seasons, the Twins didn’t deviate from where their players attempted to put the ball in play. The results, looking at the batting average on balls in play, show a slight bump in outcomes, though. During 2022, Minnesota owned a .295 BABIP, keeping them just outside the top 10 across the sport. Last season, Minnesota’s BABIP rose to .304 and bumped them up to round out the top 10. That change is minimal on the surface, but certainly can be impactful throughout an entire season.

Not unexpectedly, it wasn’t just the Twins who saw a rise in BABIP year-over-year. In 2023, there were 13 teams with a BABIP north of .300, while 2022 saw just seven teams reach that plateau. With the league looking to increase offense and generate more action on batted balls, it’s no surprise that the constraints on positioning dragged the center upward.

Another area of note when it comes to the shift is launch angle. Lifting the ball over defenders has always been the most straightforward way to avoid outs. That's why, since the advent of Statcast, the league has concertedly and constantly strived to hit the ball in the air more often.

The Twins saw that in a big way last season, thanks to a strong year from Max Kepler. Traditionally a guy who had preferred driving the ball into the ground to whiffing altogether, his desire to lift the baseball generated his best OPS+ (121) since 2019.

In 2022, the Twins put up just a 13.1-degree launch angle as a team. In 2023, Baledlli’s club owned a 14.5-degree launch angle. A launch angle of less than 10 degrees will almost always result in a ground ball, whereas one between 10-25 degrees is often a line drive. Depending on exit velocity, the optimal launch angle would be something that lands between 15-30 degrees, and that’s where a batter will see the most success. Although the offense was stagnant at times a year ago, the consistency with which Minnesota put balls in play with ideal launch angles was something that could beat the shift, even had it not been removed.

As The Athletic’s Dan Hayes noted in a conversation with MLB.com's Mike Petriello after the tweet above, the shift could undoubtedly be seen as something of a mental game. Via aggressive positioning, the defense attempted to get a batter to act in a way they otherwise wouldn’t. We immediately saw this during spring training, when the Boston Red Sox vacated left field as Joey Gallo stepped up to bat. In leaving one-third of the outfield open, they asked the Twins hitter to operate in a way he otherwise would not have within the box.

Thankfully for the Twins, more often than not, they stuck to their process. Although defenders were now told where they had to play, Minnesota continued to pull the ball and saw a greater level of success from it. Beyond that, though, they also executed more “A” swings and lifted pitches, giving themselves opportunities to find gaps or put the baseball over the wall.

To what extent MLB is happy with the outcomes of Year One since banning the shift remains to be seen. How the game continues to be impacted in the future will also be an interesting case study. For Minnesota, though, continuing the same process while putting added air under the baseball is something that they should expect to benefit from in 2024.